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Thursday, 22 November 2012

Prep 6R held their first Café de l'école on Wednesday this week and it was a brilliant success. I was really impressed by their French, especially the way they managed to change their verbs from the tu to the vous part depending on whether they were serving a pupil or a teacher. They looked great, threw themselves into their Café duties with loads of enthusiasm and we made more money to go towards French trips than in any previous Café since I started at Spring Grove.

Many thanks to all thirteen members of 6R, to Prep 3 for making lovely posters in their ICT lesson and of course to Mrs Groom and her team for their invaluable help.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Prep 5, we will be starting to learn the names of some musical instruments very soon.

Have a go at matching the words to the pictures in the instruments quiz below. Just drag the word onto the right picture to make them disappear. You might have to move the pictures around to see everything. Play it more than once to practise all the different instrument names.

Prep 4 looked at the King Jouet website to find out the names of some of their favourite toys and gadgets in French. Here is an advert for one of their shops. How many of the toys can you name in French?

Sunday, 30 September 2012

Our final event to mark European Day of Languages last week was our regular French Breakfast on Friday morning. Despite all the rain in recent weeks, the weather held and we had lots of customers for our croissants and pains au chocolat. Another big merci to Mrs Groom and her team for looking after everyone so well, and to all the parents and children who supported the languages department by coming. The proceeds will, as usual, help subsidise future French trips.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

We celebrated the European day of Languages a day early today when Andrea, mother to Benito and Celina, came to visit Form 1 and Form 2. Rather than their usual French lesson, the children practised greeting each other in Spanish and learnt to count to ten, having watched and listened to La Gallina Turuleca, a lively song about a hen who lays her eggs all over the house but never in her nest. The children all enjoyed the new language, were very keen to join in with the singing and counting and we'd all like to thank Andrea for coming in to help us celebrate languages. Muchas gracias!

Here is the video the children watched. See if you can spot the Spanish numbers!

The older children had their first ever German lesson, where we practised greeting each other and counting to twelve. As well as watching the number video below, we also sang Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken. You can listen to this below too!

Saturday, 22 September 2012

This coming Wednesday (26th September) is the European Day of Languages. This is a day to celebrate the many languages spoken in countries all over the world.

To celebrate this day at Spring Grove, rather than having their usual French lesson, Form 1 and 2 will be having a special Spanish taster lesson on Tuesday morning with Mrs Diaz Razul, and Preps 3-6 will be learning some German during the course of the week. We will finish the week on Friday morning with our first French Breakfast of the year.

Have a look at this song. How many languages can you recognise? Why don't you try answering the register in as many different languages as you can this week? This poster can help you pronounce the word for hello in lots of different languages.

Friday, 17 August 2012

Friday, 20 July 2012

The children have worked really hard on their French this
term and the highlight for me was definitely the Prep 5 trip to the Château de la Baudonnière in Normandy,
which took place at the beginning of June. Mr Jones, Mrs Martin and I took a
lovely group of 25 children from 5D and 5M for a week of activities, games and
cultural visits. As always, all the instruction and interaction from the Château staff was carried out in French
and the children soon learnt that speaking confidence would be essential not
only for the group activities, but also if they were going to get more pain or grenadine from the kitchens! It was a fantastic week with perfect
weather and a great group of children who threw themselves wholeheartedly into
every activity, were willing to try new food and experiences, and who showed
off the French they have been learning at school with pride.

Lower down the school, Nursery have been so good this year
that I ran out of topics and we started on some of the Reception ones! They
have been a pleasure to teach, and have loved joining in with all our songs,
rhymes and games.

Reception have had another good term. They listen carefully
every week and are developing lovely accents. It is rare for me to need to use
any English at all in their lessons, as their comprehension is getting quite
impressive!

Form 1 have been practising transport words, farm animals
and seaside vocabulary this term and have enjoyed their first writing in French
over the year, and they will be working on this much more next year when they
join Form 2.

Form 2 are learning to copy French words carefully and
accurately and to recognise that French looks very different to the way it
sounds. They love interactive games at the board and have been revising zoo
animals, family members and rooms of the house this term.

Prep 3 have worked on fruit and vegetable vocabulary, a
French story and farm animals this term, whilst Prep 4 have been listening to
music by Saint-Saëns to extend their animal vocabulary and have revised the
weather, the time and have learned to talk about what they are wearing.

Prep 6 organised another successful Café de l'École in the
first half of term and have spent this term learning how to talk all about
themselves and their families. They are getting the hang of verbs, which will
be useful next year!

Many thanks to Mrs Groom and her team for the French
breakfast we held in June. The weather may have been disappointing, but I was
pleased that so many of you supported the event and we were able to raise a
little money to subsidise future French trips.

Sunday, 24 June 2012

Thank you so much to all the parents who braved the intermittent rain on Friday morning for our final French breakfast of the year. We were able to raise lots of money for future French trips by selling the usual breakfast of croissants, pains au chocolat, jus d'orange, chocolat chaud, thé and café. Many thanks to Mrs Groom and her team and to all the staff who kindly helped out. I particularly enjoyed hearing Mr Jones playing La Marseillaise on the trombone and trying out some of the French he learned on our trip to the Château. Our next breakfast will be in September.

Friday, 8 June 2012

I have just uploaded some more photos, including some photos taken from the children's own cameras, so click on the slideshow on the right if you would like to have a look at them. There are some more to follow, as I know Mrs Martin took lots during the week.

Looking again at all the fantastic pictures made me keen to say a big thank you, first of all to Mr Jones and Mrs Martin, whose support and advice were invaluable over the week and whose lovely company helped make the trip so much fun.

Thank you also to the Château staff who as always were welcoming, patient and extremely helpful throughout the week.My biggest thank you is to the children of 5D and 5M, who made us laugh so many times and made the whole week worthwhile. I hope they have come home full of confidence in their ability to understand and speak French. I am very proud of how well they looked after one another and worked so well in their groups to make all the activities such a success, even when they were exhausted! It was a pleasure to take them, and I look forward to taking 4W and 4C this time next year!

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Yippee - the Château office finally have an Internet connection (though no WiFi yet) so I can show you some photos! We had a muddy morning at the assault course this morning and are about to go climbing! The children are really enjoying the activities and are finding it hard to decide what they have enjoyed most so far! Click on the slideshow on the right to see all the photos from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, but here are some highlights...

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

This is the a video of the book "Va-t'en grand monstre vert!" by Ed Emberley. Those of you in Prep 5 and Prep 6 coming in for Saturday's Open Day at school might get to design and talk about your own monster!

We haven't revised animals for a while. Why don't you have a go at this animal exercise. If there are some animals you haven't met before, use this online dictionary to look them up and broaden your vocabulary.

Saturday, 10 March 2012

Watch this French video all about a day at a French primary school. What times are mentioned? What lessons do the children do during the day? What differences did you spot between the French school and your school?

Watch this lovely Canadian animation about a teddy called Ludovic who makes some animals out of paper. Even Nursery will know some of the French words in this! Can you say the names of all the animals he makes in French?

Prep 3 have been learning how to talk about some activities they enjoy and Prep 4 are about to start the topic of sports. This video features some French children talking about the activities they enjoy. How many can you understand?

Reception have been revising parts of the body by singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in French and today we read a book featuring this well known French song. What body parts do they use in this version to plant their cabbages?

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Reception are learning all about the farm at the moment, so we have been learning the names of some farm animals in French too. Why don't you listen to this song which is half in English and half in French? It has a few animals we have learnt in class, plus some extra ones too! Can you count how many animals are in the song? You could print out the dot to dot above if you like, colour it in and then bring it into school to show me!

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

In their French lesson today, both Prep 5 classes celebrated a belated Epiphany with some delicious galettes des rois very kindly bought in France last night by Mr Brooks. We learnt about the festival, sang the special song (see the post below) and then the youngest member of each class chose the first slice of galette. Ellie and Georgie were the lucky winners of the fève and each chose a friend to share their royal status for the day!

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Prep 5 and Prep 6 have both been doing some phonics practice this week. We have looked at lots of French sounds over the last year and their hard work is starting to pay off - when they meet new words or read aloud in French their pronunciation is getting quite good!
These are some of the sounds we have been looking at together:

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Prep 6 have been revising greetings and have made up some dialogues in the last week. This week they will be designing a comic strip of a basic conversation using this website. Watch out here for some of the results!

Sunday, 15 January 2012

This term, Prep 3 are learning the French names for some playground activities. One of them is la marelle (hopscotch). I found this great video of some French children playing la marelle. It will help you revise your numbers too!

Also, if you want to have another look at the video of the children from Martinique playing clapping games, you can watch it again here. Ten stars for anyone who can learn the first rhyme!

Prep 4 are learning how to talk (and sing!) about the story of La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty) this term. Why not watch these clips from the French version of the Disney film? There are two parts (see the two videos below), which show the most important moments from the Disney story in French.
Can you remember who wrote the original French version of the story. When was it written? What other stories did the same man write? Stars for anyone who can tell me the answers! Look at this website to help you find out if you have forgotten!

Welcome to the French Blog forSpring Grove School, Wye, Kent.TheBlog du Bosquetwill be full of activities, videos, resources, links and fun for all those learning French atSpring Grove School. I hope to show off some of the lovely work our pupils have been doing in their French lessons and show the children how they can practise their language skills at home using the Internet.